David Morrell - The Totem

"You don't think so."

"I have no opinion. But she should know about the damage."

They went onto the porch. The mother and the father now were running.

"Is he-?"

"Just sedated. Everything considered, he's been lucky. Stay away from him," the medical examiner said. "I don't want you contaminated. You can see him at the hospital."

They didn't look convinced.

"It's simply a precaution," Slaughter said, stepping close. "We still don't know what we're dealing with. Let's put him in the back seat of my car," he told his men.

"You'd better set him on a blanket. We can burn it at the hospital," the medical examiner said.

"Do we have to be that careful?"

The medical examiner only stared at him.

"I'll get a blanket from my trunk," the father said and hurried.

"Good. That's very good. We need your help."

They moved toward the cruiser. Slaughter opened the back door, and the father spread the blanket.

"Thank you," Slaughter told him. "I know how hard-"

He looked at where the mother stood beside the cruiser, weeping. "-how hard this must be for you."

They set the boy inside, and the medical examiner leaned in to check him. He stayed in there quite a while. When he came out, even in the darkness, Slaughter saw how pale his face had suddenly become.

"I have to talk."

"What is it?"

"Over there."

The medical examiner walked toward the trees. Slaughter followed.

"What's the matter?"

"I just killed him."

"What?"

"I should have thought." The medical examiner rubbed his forehead.

"Come on, for Christ sake. Make some sense."

"The sedative. I should have thought. The dog I found. I called a vet who came and took one look and gave the dog a sedative."

"But what's-?"

"The dog had reached the stage of paralysis by then. The sedative was just enough to kill it. That boy in your back seat isn't breathing."

"Oh, my God."

"You understand now. I'm not sure exactly how this virus works, but it's damned fast. I know that much. He was maybe on the verge of becoming paralyzed. The sedative precipitated everything. It slowed his body's metabolism until it killed him."

"You can't blame yourself."

"You're damned right I can. I should have paid attention! I just killed him. " The medical examiner closed his eyes, shaking.

Slaughter turned to see the father leaning toward the back seat.

"I don't… Something's wrong!" the father blurted.

Slaughter watched the mother crying as the father scrambled in. He saw his men, the cruisers, their headlights glaring at the mansion, saw the woman Rettig talked to start to run up toward the mansion. He sensed the moon above him and the medical examiner beside him shaking as he felt his world begin to tumble and a creature in the park below him started howling at the moon. Dunlap stood to one side, taking pictures. Slaughter didn't even have the strength for anger anymore. He let the man continue taking pictures, flasher blinking.

Slaughter was drunk. he hadn't come back home until nearly one o'clock, and he had stayed outside just long enough to check his horses. Then he'd walked back to his house and with the porchlight on had stared down at the cooler filled with tepid water and the beer cans from this morning. There were empties on the porch as well. There hadn't been a chance to clean up. Too much had begun to happen. But he didn't clean up this time either, simply glanced out at the darkness and then turned to go inside where first he flicked the lights on to study another cooler in the kitchen before heading toward the cupboard where he kept the bourbon. That was something that he almost never drank, but this night had been special, oh, my God, yes, and he almost didn't even bother with a glass. He knew that would be too much weakness, though, and since he was determined to be weak to start with, he at least would set some limits. Reaching for the bottle and a glass, he fumbled in the freezer for some ice and poured the glass up to the top and in three swallows drank a third of it.

The shock was almost paralyzing. He put both hands on the sink and leaned across it, choking, waiting for the scalding flood to settle in his stomach. He could feel it draining down his throat. He felt his stomach tensing, and he knew that because he hadn't eaten since this morning, he might easily throw up. But then the spasms ebbed, and he was breathing, trembling. He leaned across the sink a moment longer. Then he poured some water with the bourbon, and he started toward the shadowy living room. Once, years ago, when he had learned that his wife was leaving him, he had felt emotions like this, ruin, fright, discouragement that bordered on despair. He had sensed those feelings building in him until the instant of the divorce, and going to his rented room, his legs so shaky that he didn't think he'd get there, he had stopped at a liquor store where he had bought the cheapest wine that he could find. A quart of Ruby Banquet, some god-awful label like that. And he'd somehow made it to his room where without pausing he had drunk the bottle in thirty seconds. Setting down the bottle, he had scrambled toward the bathroom, and the heave of liquid from him had evacuated more than just the wine. The sickness had been cleansing, purging all the ugliness, the hate and fear and anger. He had slumped beside the toilet bowl, and how long he had stayed there he was never certain, but when he got up and slumped across the bed, he found that it was night and that the slowly flashing neon sign outside his window was the pattern of his heartbeat, measured, weary. There was nothing in him anymore. He had passed the crisis, and he had a sense then of a new beginning. He was neutral.

Now he'd graduated from the cheap wine to the bourbon, and he would have forced himself to throw up, but he understood that this trouble wasn't over. No, his apprehension from the night before remained with him, and he was definitely certain that this wasn't over. First, there'd be the lawsuit. That much he could bet on. Against the medical examiner, and then like ripples in a pond, eventually against himself and against the town council that employed him. Then investigations to determine if the medical examiner and he should lose their jobs.

Hell, the medical examiner might even lose his license. That boy might have died because he was allergic to the sedative. There hadn't been the proper questions, proper cautions. They had let the trouble so distract them that they hadn't thought beyond it. They might very well deserve to lose their jobs.

He didn't want to think about that. He wanted only to shut off his mind and stare down at the bourbon in his hand. Avoiding the light in the kitchen, he sat in a dark corner of the living room and frowned at the darkness past the window. For a moment as he raised the glass, he didn't realize that it was empty. Better have another. So he went back to the kitchen, pouring more but putting ample water with it this time. He would have to talk to lots of people in the morning, and he wanted to be sober. He could recollect as if he still were there the father crying with the mother, cursing, saying that he'd warned them about so much force to catch a little boy. The hardest part had been his struggle with the father. "No, you can't go in to touch him."

"He's my son."

"I don't care. He still might contaminate you. As it is, your wife might be infected from that bite."

It took two men at last to keep the father from the back seat of the cruiser. Dunlap had continued taking pictures. Oh, my Jesus, what a mess. And when he'd finally mustered the energy to talk to Dunlap, there had been no sign of him. The man had sense enough to get away while he was able, likely fearing that his pictures would be confiscated. Slaughter didn't know if he would actually have grabbed the camera, but by then he had been mad enough to grab at something. It was just as well that Dunlap had not been around to serve that function. There wasn't much happening by the time he looked for Dun-lap anyhow. The man might simply have walked into town to get some rest. The mother and the father had been driven home. The medical examiner was going with the body to the morgue. The officers were locking the mansion until they'd come back in the morning to investigate. He himself had stood in the darkness by his cruiser, staring at the mansion, and he'd heard that howling from below him in the park again, but he had been too weary and disgusted to go down there. He had seen enough for one night, and he had the sense that he would see a lot more very soon. All he wanted was to get home and anesthetize himself.